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The American Indian
Oil on linen, 1970 |
A quote that I
noticed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this week, juxtaposed with Inauguration
Day coming at the end of the week, set me thinking about our nation’s first
true citizens. King said, “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the
doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.” My
train of thought barreled on, eventually arriving at a Native American artist
whom I have long admired: Fritz Scholder.
Scholder
(October 6, 1937 – February 10, 2005), who was one-quarter Luiseño, a
California Mission tribe, was an Abstract Expressionist. The imagery in his
paintings invariably drew on Native American themes and individuals. Several
paintings, like the one shown above, were of native figures draped in the
American flag.
King, to expand
the quote, went on to say, “Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on
our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society.
From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial
supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national
policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic
experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted
ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature,
our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught
to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier
culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.”
King was speaking half a century ago, but his remarks are still pertinent.
Scholder tapped
all of this history, weaving it into his extravagantly colorful paintings. I
discovered Scholder’s work when I was attending college as an undergraduate art
major in the late 1960s. Since that time, whenever I have visited a museum, I’ve
always kept an eye peeled for a Scholder painting. Occasionally, though far too
seldom, I have been rewarded. Sometime in the late 1970s, on a winter trip to
Phoenix, Arizona, I wandered into a gallery that handled Scholder’s work. It
was a spellbinding moment, to be surrounded, literally, by his paintings. The
images ranged from fierce to whimsical. It was difficult to drag myself away.
Fritz Scholder
is represented in numerous museums and galleries. Perhaps nearest my own
location in southern Indiana, visitors to the Eiteljorg Museum of American
Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis can enjoy one of his works. Scholder’s
paintings are worth contemplating, both from the standpoint of artistic
expression and as a reflection of the interwoven themes of Native American
history and the evolving place of Native Americans, minority individuals, and
immigrants—all “othered” too often, instead of accepted as the true warp and
woof of our national fabric.
With a fraught Inauguration
Day approaching this week, such contemplation is timely. If you can’t find a
Scholder painting in a nearby museum, google his name and explore the images
online. I guarantee a rich visual experience.
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